In Ohio, a Win for Unions—That Just Preserves the Status Quo

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/article/164555/ohio-win-unions-just-preserves-status-quo

The campaign to repeal Ohio’s anti–collective bargaining bill felt and looked different from so many of the campaigns that I’ve been involved in over the past fifteen years. From the rallies with 20,000 people to a volunteer base of 10,000 to a community-organizing component that knocked on more than 100,000 doors this past weekend, this campaign was something new. And it holds potential for a deep and lasting alliance between labor, faith and community here in Ohio in a way that few could have imagined just a year ago.

I grew up in Ohio and am the grandson of a factory worker, a union steward for thirty years at Westinghouse factory. It was a job my grandfather worked so that my father could be the first one in our family to go to college. My father earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree and went on to be an eighth grade teacher at a public school system here in Ohio, a job he would have for thirty years.

One of my defining political moments was a strike that my father’s union went out on fifteen years ago—also my first year as community organizer. Teachers’ strikes have a simple formula. The teachers strike. The schools are shut down. Parents and community members exert pressure on the board to settle a contract and a deal gets made. In this case, the School Board not only bused in scab teachers from Michigan and kept the schools open with 94 percent attendance, they hired paramilitary guards to stand at every school. The guards were dressed in full black military gear to “ensure” my father and other teachers would not be able to disrupt the flow of the normal school day.

After a period of time of being on strike and with no leverage to get the board to settle, many teachers began to struggle to pay their mortgages. The leadership of the union was defeated and school board broke the back of the union. They broke my father’s back. My father was on the verge of retiring and the state retirement system calculates your retirement payments based on the salary average of your last three years. He was considered out of work during the strike, lowering his average salary and permanently reducing his retirement. Meanwhile, the contract the teachers and the school board settled on was a 0 percent raise in year one, a 0 percent raise in year two and a 2 percent raise in year three. It was a humiliating defeat, and one that stripped my father of some piece of his dignity.

[Scuba]

1. I think it was much more than sustaining the status quo...

... firstly, the "status quo" was SB5 in effect, busting the Unions.


Secondly, it demonstrated to People that they can win, that they don't have to roll over. It energized a nation of working families.


At the Recall Walker training session Thursday eve, People were ecstatic over the Ohio results.

[xchrom]

3. my thoughts are more in line w/ yours -- but i was surprised? by this article

and thought he had something interesting to say about what happened.

[MjolnirTime]

2. it was a big win. sorry you cannot see that.

[luckyleftyme2]

4. a step forward for the worker

the right is heavily dependent on money from outside the country. these investors want no union and want to pay no benefits. how many pension plans have bit the dust because of this?
our retirement years are rated number 10 in the world of the top 16 countries.
401k's are not the answer any more than ira's were.
they are at the mercy of wall street and the ultra rich who can and effect stock values!

[rfranklin]

5. A big win would be Kasich tarred and feathered, ridden out of town on a rail...

The way our Founding Fathers did it.

[MjolnirTime]

11. What's happening is the 21st Century equivalent. He has been rebuked on the Public stage

and his Party will continue to pay in the next election.

[midnight]

6. I am tired of being in a progressive movement that often starts with the strategy of “how little can

we lose by? Boy I do understand that...


But it is also not lost on me that what we won tonight was merely the status quo—simply to keep the collective bargaining laws on the books that have been there for thirty years—and were there fifteen years ago during my father’s strike. And the governor and legislature have already said they will pass parts of the bill piecemeal in 2012.

I am tired of being in a progressive movement that often starts with the strategy of “how little can we lose by?” It is a strategy that is 100 percent defense. From that lens, the best we can do is maintain the status quo, which is one where we see the erosion of organized labor, increasing racial disparities, no accountability for Wall Street and the largest disparities in wealth since the 1920s. We have to learn to play defensive and offense at the same time. The next step here in Ohio cannot be what’s next for us to defend. It is time for us to go on offense and act boldly around our values and vision for how we create good jobs and strong communities.


I don't understand:"the governor and legislature have already said they will pass parts of the bill piecemeal in 2012." Was this the collective bargaining rights that were to be piecemealed in?

[peace13]

7. Health care for all Ohioans would have been a big win.

What we got was a huge smack down of our arrogant teabagger governor, a motion passed to ignore the federal health care guidelines and the unions get to maintain what little control they had in the process. Don't get me wrong , it was amazing to see Ohioans get it together and fight the rethuglicans in our Statehouse. I would like to see a little less chest beating on the part of the unions and possibly a thank you to those of us who are not union members who supported the movement.

[doc03]

8. Tea party group Ohio Liberty Council is going after a

right to work Law now.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501363_162-57322767/tea-party-groups-seek-ohio-right-to-work-measure/



Ohio Liberty Council is another group linked to the Koch brother's Americans for Prosperity:

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/koch-industries-denies-funding-freedomworks

[socialist_n_TN]

9. I agree that this is the attitude now..........

It's a "victory" if all the union busting that happened before the 2010 elections stays the same. And that's the same in Wisconsin. Even if they recall Walker (and that's NOT a sure thing at all-look at the state senate recalls. The balance of power in the state legislature stayed the same) that doesn't mean the Koch brothers laws are automatically repealed.

It's time for more militant measures than electoral remedies.

[Scuba]

10. Actually, here in Wisconsin we did tip the balance of power by winning...

...two additional seats in the recalls.

While the Senate is still red, the margin is now only one seat, and Republican Dale Schultz of Richland Center has sided with the Democrats on key issues, like redistricting.

Winning those two seats was a BFD. Overturning SB5 is a BFD.

[socialist_n_TN]

12. I've got to ask. Have any of those draconian anti union laws

been overturned yet? And Schultz, does he ALWAYS vote for the Dem side on issues? How did he vote on the initial Walker laws?

Wisconsin had a momentum going for a general strike that could have possibly brought Walker down earlier this year. When the working class (unions) put ALL their eggs in the electoral basket, I knew that the fascists had won.

BTW, I wish y'all luck with all the recalls, but I'm VERY skeptical that they'll really chnage anything. I believe that the BEST outcome now will be to stop the bleeding and keep anything ELSE from passing. Playing defense, even successfully, can, at BEST, only be counted as a partial victory. I'll be glad to be proven wrong, but I won't feel like I've been proven wrong until Walker is recalled AND his laws have been repealed. THAT would be a victory.

[Scuba]

13. We've not stopped them, but we've damned sure slowed them down, and...

... I'm not willing to call that a total defeat.


In my humble opinion, a general strike would have had exactly the opposite of the effect we wanted.

[socialist_n_TN]

14. "In my humble opinion, a general strike would have had

exactly the opposite of the effect we wanted." That is, OF COURSE, a possibility. But we'll never know because it wasn't even tried.

I'm not sure that the electoral remedies, by THEMSELVES, are going to have the effect we want either. Between voter suppression and outright electoral fraud in Wisconsin and other places, plus the lack of true candidates representing the 99%, I'm not so sure that we're going to get the effects we want through the electoral system. I honestly believe that we're going to need extra electoral remedies.

I suppose that it's one of those "We'll see" type situations. I just hope we have time to recover from the fascist takeover if electoral methods don't work.